Their Wicked Ways Read Free Page A

traveling by coach.”
     
    “I would not have guessed,”
Nick retorted wryly.
     
    Darcy sprawled on the bench
opposite him, looking around for a barmaid.
     
    “I had expected you an hour
since,” Nick said pensively.  “I have had dinner set back.  I expect it will be
inedible.”
     
    Somewhat appeased by that
glad intelligence, Darcy caught the eye of one of the barmaids and favored her
with a wink and a taste of the smile that made female hearts everywhere
flutter.  “I’m in no mood to be particular tonight.  My horse was beginning to
look good to me.”
     
    Nick’s dark, arched brows
rose a notch.  “You refer, I presume, to your stomach?”
     
    Darcy reddened.  “I’m not in
the mood for your peculiar brand of humor, Nick.  I’ve not had a bite to eat
since I first woke, and that hardly sustained me through the first league.  I
wish you would explain to me why we must go haring off to the countryside if you’ve
no intention of taking Moreland’s challenge seriously.”
     
    Nick settled back in his seat
causally as the barmaid set two brimming mugs in front of them, dividing a
smile and a view of her ample bosom between them.  Looking more than a little
disappointed when neither man gave her more than an absent glance, she left the
table and hurried off to the kitchen to bring the meals Nick had ordered. 
“I’ll admit my memory is lamentable, but I don’t recall suggesting that ‘we’ do
anything,” Nick responded coolly when the barmaid had departed.
     
    Darcy’s eyes narrowed.  “Now
that you mention it, you didn’t.  And I’m damned curious to know why you didn’t
if you were planning on making the trip down.”
     
    “It occurred to me that
Moreland might have designs upon Bronte’s fortune.”
     
    “And?”
     
    Nick shrugged.  “I felt an
obligation to see to it that Isaac’s widow did not fall into the hands of a man
who could be counted upon to run through it in the least amount of time
possible.  You will admit the Bronte we knew would be fair game for any man
with the least touch of sophistication.  It seems more than likely her stint in
the colonies would not have improved upon her gauche, trusting nature.”
     
    Darcy studied his friend
thoughtfully for several moments, but as the maid arrived with their food at
that moment, he was effectively distracted.  It wasn’t until he’d polished off
a goodly portion of his mutton that he looked up once more.
     
    Nick was eyeing him, he saw,
with more than a touch of disapproval.
     
    “One would think that watching
someone consume their food with such relish would increase one’s own appetite,
when, if fact, the opposite is true.”
     
    Darcy grinned, not put out in
the least.  “You don’t carry around the bulk that I do.  And, I might add,
you’ve been lazing in a coach the past several hours, not slogging through the
weather on the back of a horse.  If you’ve no interest in your dinner, I’ll
take it.”
     
    Nick lifted a hand.  “I’ll
send the barmaid for another plate for you.”
     
    Darcy grinned. After a
moment, he frowned thoughtfully, however.  “Why do you suppose she decided to
come back … after all this time, I mean?”
     
    “The barmaid?”
     
    “Bronte.”
     
    “If I were to hazard a guess,
I would suppose her mother finally convinced her she was on her deathbed.”
     
    Darcy thought that over.  “I
suppose, but since she’s been on her deathbed for the past ten years that I
know of, I’m thinking Bronte probably wouldn’t fall for it.”
     
    “She is naïve,” Nick
pointed out coolly. “As I recall, her mother had her in a terror at least half
the time, convinced each time she took to her bed that this time the
threat was real.”
     
    Darcy studied him a moment. 
“I’ll admit it’s hard to think of her as anything but the skinny, freckle faced
child we knew, but she must be....”  He stopped, trying to figure it up.  “What? 
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